homily - Baptism of the Lord

Christian Identity.

Whenever you believe a lie, you give power the liar. This is hugely detrimental when it affects your self-image, your dignity, your person.

I'm not good enough. Or I'm not good. Or I'm not enough. I'm damaged goods beyond repair.

Letting these lies sit in your soul is like locking yourself up in handcuffs.

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NOT FOUNDED ON GOOD FEELINGS EITHER

When we are having good feelings in the spiritual life (consolations), C.S. Lewis says that we should …Accept these sensations with thankfulness as birthday cards from God, but remember that they are only greetings, not the real gift. I mean that it is not the sensations that are the real thing. The real thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit which can’t usually be—perhaps not ever—experienced as a sensation or emotion. The sensations are merely the response of your nervous system. Don’t depend on them. Otherwise when they go and you are once more emotionally flat (as you certainly will be quite soon), you might think that the real thing had gone too. But it won’t. It will be there when you can’t feel it. May even be most operative when you can feel it least.

…(Mere Christianity) Unless you teach your moods “where they get off”, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion.

OUR IDENTITY HAS A FIRM FOUNDATION ONLY IN GOD.

Transformation of your mind, seeing the world in a whole new way, is not easy. It does mean a type of dying of the old self, but it also means the exhilaration of a new life being born in you.

It’s hard to describe this well, but sometimes we see this in movies, where people get some new piece of information that helps them to realize every assumption they had made about that person or that situation was all wrong.

The best one I can think of right now is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. But it also happens in smaller ways in other movies. Ask me afterwards if you want me to tell you but it may spoil any films you haven’t seen yet. Citizen Kane, Sixth Sense, The Village, The Wedding Singer, Clueless, Clue, I Am David.

When this happens, these people experience a type of death of old self and come back to new life anew.

The Christian nowadays must do the same. The only way to survive as a Christian in our world is to die, mentally – to have your world view transformed – so that your identity is founded IN GOD and not in yourself or what others say about you.

The reading today ends with the words of the Father over the Lord Jesus. These words are huge and should be prayed about in depth for every one of us. Have you ever let these words, spoken over you in your Baptism, to sink into the core of your being? If not, then I’d say right now is a great time to do so.